supply them with just and founded motives to disaffection, than not to have that disaffection in existence to justify an oppression, which, not from policy, but disposition, we have predetermined to exercise?

What shadow of reason could be assigned, why, at a s time when the most Protestant part of this Protestant empire found it for its advantage to unite with the two principal Popish states, to unite itself in the closest bonds with France and Spain, for our destruction, that we should refuse to unite with our own Catholic countrymen for our 10 own preservation? Ought we, like madmen, to tear off the plasters that the lenient hand of prudence had spread over the wounds and gashes which in our delirium of ambition we had given to our own body? No person ever reprobated the American war more than I 15 did, and do, and ever shall. But I never will consent that we should lay additional voluntary penalties on ourselves for a fault which carries but too much of its own punishment in its own nature. For one, I was delighted with the proposal of internal peace. I accepted the bless- 20 ing with thankfulness and transport; I was truly happy to find one good effect of our civil distractions, that they had put an end to all religious strife and heart-burning in our own bowels. What must be the sentiments of a man who would wish to perpetuate domestic hostility 25 when the causes of dispute are at an end, and who, crying out for peace with one part of the nation on the most humiliating terms, should deny it to those who offer friendship without any terms at all?

But if I was unable to reconcile such a denial to the 30 contracted principles of local duty, what answer could I give to the broad claims of general humanity? I confess to you freely that the sufferings and distresses of the people of America, in this cruel war, have at times affected me more deeply than I can express. I felt every 35

Gazette of triumph as a blow upon my heart, which has an hundred times sunk and fainted within me at all the mischiefs brought upon those who bear the whole brunt of war in the heart of their country. Yet the Americans 5 are utter strangers to me; a nation among whom I am not sure that I have a single acquaintance. Was I to suffer my mind to be so unaccountably warped; was I to keep such iniquitous weights and measures of temper and of reason, as to sympathize with those who are in 10 open rebellion against an authority which I respect, at war with a country which by every title ought to be, and is, most dear to me; and yet to have no feeling at all for the hardships and indignities suffered by men who, by their very vicinity, are bound up in a nearer relation to 15 us; who contribute their share, and more than their share, to the common prosperity; who perform the common offices of social life, and who obey the laws, to the full as well as I do? Gentlemen, the danger to the state being out of the question (of which, let me tell 20 you, statesmen themselves are apt to have but too exquisite a sense), I could assign no one reason of justice, policy, or feeling, for not concurring most cordially, as most cordially I did concur, in softening some part of that shameful servitude under which several of my 25 worthy fellow-citizens were groaning.

Important effects followed this act of wisdom. They appeared at home and abroad to the great benefit of this kingdom; and, let me hope, to the advantage of mankind at large. It betokened union among ourselves. It 30 showed soundness, even on the part of the persecuted, which generally is the weak side of every community. But its most essential operation was not in England. The Act was immediately, though very imperfectly, copied in Ireland; and this imperfect transcript of an 35 imperfect Act, this first faint sketch of toleration, which

did little more than disclose a principle, and mark out a disposition, completed in a most wonderful manner the re-union to the state of all the Catholics of that country. It made us what we ought always to have been, one family, one body, one heart and soul, against the family 5 combination, and all other combinations, of our enemies. We have indeed obligations to that people who received such small benefits with so much gratitude, and for which gratitude and attachment to us, I am afraid they have suffered not a little in other places.

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I dare say you have all heard of the privileges indulged to the Irish Catholics residing in Spain. You have likewise heard with what circumstances of severity they have been lately expelled from the seaports of that kingdom, driven into the inland cities, and there detained as a 15 sort of prisoners of state. I have good reason to believe that it was the zeal to our government and our cause (somewhat indiscreetly expressed in one of the addresses of the Catholics of Ireland) which has thus drawn down on their heads the indignation of the court of Madrid, to 20 the inexpressible loss of several individuals, and in future, perhaps, to the great detriment of the whole of their body. Now that our people should be persecuted in Spain for their attachment to this country, and persecuted in this country for their supposed enmity to us, is 25 such a jarring reconciliation of contradictory distressesis a thing at once so dreadful and ridiculous - that no malice short of diabolical would wish to continue any human creatures in such a situation. But honest men will not forget either their merit or their sufferings. 30 There are men (and many, I trust, there are) who, out of love to their country and their kind, would torture their invention to find excuses for the mistakes of their brethren, and who, to stifle dissension, would construe even doubtful appearances with the utmost favor; such men 35

will never persuade themselves to be ingenious and refined in discovering disaffection and treason in the manifest, palpable signs of suffering loyalty. Persecution is so unnatural to them that they gladly snatch the very 5 first opportunity of laying aside all the tricks and devices of penal politics, and of returning home, after all their irksome and vexatious wanderings, to our natural family mansion, to the grand social principle that unites all men, in all descriptions, under the shadow of an equal 10 and impartial justice.

Men of another sort, I mean the bigoted enemies to liberty, may perhaps, in their politics, make no account of the good or ill affection of the Catholics of England, who are but a handful of people (enough to torment, but 15 not enough to fear), perhaps not so many, of both sexes and of all ages, as fifty thousand. But, gentlemen, it is possible you may not know that the people of that persuasion in Ireland amount at least to sixteen or seventeen hundred thousand souls. I do not at all exaggerate the 20 number. A Nation to be persecuted! Whilst we were masters of the sea, embodied with America, and in alliance with half the powers of the continent, we might perhaps, in that remote corner of Europe, afford to tyrannize with impunity. But there is a revolution in 25 our affairs which makes it prudent to be just. In our late awkward contest with Ireland about trade, had religion been thrown in to ferment and imbitter the mass of discontents, the consequences might have been truly dreadful; but, very happily, that cause of quarrel was 30 previously quieted by the wisdom of the Acts I am commending.

Even in England, where I admit the danger from the discontent of that persuasion to be less than in Ireland; yet even here, had we listened to the counsels of fanati35 cism and folly, we might have wounded ourselves very

deeply, and wounded ourselves in a very tender part. You are apprised that the Catholics of England consist mostly of our best manufacturers. Had the legislature chosen, instead of returning their declarations of duty with correspondent good-will, to drive them to despair, 5 there is a country at their very door to which they would be invited, a country in all respects as good as ours, and with the finest cities in the world ready built to receive them. And thus the bigotry of a free country, and in an enlightened age, would have repeopled the 10 cities of Flanders, which, in the darkness of two hundred years ago, had been desolated by the superstition of a cruel tyrant. Our manufacturers were the growth of the persecutions in the Low Countries. What a spec

tacle would it be to Europe to see us at this time of day 15 balancing the account of tyranny with those very countries, and by our persecutions driving back trade and manufacture, as a sort of vagabonds, to their original settlement ! But I trust we shall be saved this last of disgraces.

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So far as to the effect of the Act on the interest of this nation. With regard to the interests of mankind at large I am sure the benefit was very considerable. Long before this Act, indeed, the spirit of toleration began to gain ground in Europe. In Holland, the third part of the 25 people are Catholics; they live at ease, and are a sound part of the State. In many parts of Germany, Protestants and Papists partake the same cities, the same councils, and even the same churches. The unbounded liberality of the King of Prussia's conduct on this occasion is 30 known to all the world; and it is of a piece with the other grand maxims of his reign. The magnanimity of the imperial court, breaking through the narrow principles of its predecessors, has indulged its Protestant subjects not only with property, with worship, with 35